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27 Sep 2017 8:21:38am

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David Clarke, I posted a reply a little earlier showing how categorically wrong you are. Although it appeared at the time, the Moderators seems to have decided to delete it. So, here is again, in substance if not identical.

Check the evidence from people who know what they are talking about. Like these:

Kelly Fuller, with the American Bird Conservancy, said, “In 2009, an expert at the Fish and Wildlife Service estimated 440,000 birds were being killed by [USA located] wind turbines a year. That was before we had more growth of the industry. As the industry has plans to triple the number of turbines installed, we can expect to see a bird kill exceeding a million a year.”

A July 2008 study by The Alameda County Community Development Agency identifies up to 10,000 annual bird deaths from Altamont Pass wind turbines. Audubon describes Altamont as possibly the worst site in the world for a wind energy project.

Judy Rodd is director of Friends of Blackwater Cave, a West Virginia conservation group. She says this cave, close to a wind farm, houses thousands of hibernating bats during the winter. “The first year, they found 430 dead bats and I think 50 dead birds in a very preliminary sketchy study. The expert that analyzed those numbers, Dr. Tom Kunz from Boston University, estimated that finding 430 dead bats meant that actually 10,000 bats had been killed in one year," she said. “That's because the carcasses are scavenged by foxes, crows and other predators”

Windmills are also killing large numbers of bats in the Appalachian Mountains. A report issued in September by the Government Accountability Office on wind farms' impact on wildlife, said that 2,000 bat corpses were collected during a seven-month study at a 44-turbine site in West Virginia.

David Cottingham is senior adviser at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He says the service does not have the authority to halt a wind project that's on a migratory path. “But we do have the authority to prosecute them for violating the Endangered Species Act if they cause kill," he said. (NOTE: How comforting is that? We can’t stop the killing but we can prosecute you later.)

The Altamont Pass is known for its strong winds, but it also lies on an important bird-migration route, and its grass-covered hills provide food for several types of raptors. "It's the worst possible place to put a wind farm," said Jeff Miller, a wildlife advocate at the non-profit http://www.biologicaldiversity.org Center for Biological Diversity. "It's responsible for an astronomical level of bird kills."

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